Otakked Dept.

I'll be back at Otakon next year, but I suspect I might not be going as press. Instead, I may well go as Press — Genji Press, to be precise.

I've been musing this over for a while now, and if something has been on my mind for that long and refuses to go away (like some psychic toothache), odds are it's something I'm gonna do eventually and all that stands between me and it is some hard work.

The biggest problem with becoming a vendor, either in the dealer room or the Artist's Alley, is the sheer cost. I suspect what I'll have to do is split a table with someone willing to do so — either another artist or an existing writer (maybe someone with a webcomic).

The cost of an Artist Alley table isn't too bad: $70. It's the competition to secure tables that's fierce as hell, and the total allotment of tables are usually gone in days: this year they opened artist's reg on May 18 and it closed on May 20th. Ouch. The good news, if there is any (okay, there is; I'm being snide) is that I'll be able to wait until fairly late into next year before I even need to think about doing this.

I don't just want to cover and talk about the scene anymore. I've been growing as a participant in it for some time now — or, maybe better to say, someone who does things as opposed to just talking about them. Please do not infer that by this I mean people who only talk about things are doing nothing; we call the best and brightest of that sort of activity "criticism", and it's something I do regularly, as anyone who reads my site knows.

But I'm not in the same position I was a few years ago. I now have two-going-on-three major completed works under my belt, with many more to come, and it's high time I stepped up and started advertising myself to the world in more upfront ways.

And so — to 2010 and beyond!

Last note: I've still got one or two more items to edit and post from Otakon. One is a Mary Elizabeth McGlynn roundtable discussion that I sat in on along with my cohort Jeremy; the other an interview with one of the FUNimation folks that was regrettably quite short.